Wes Killin had always been big. The 5'10" Missouri native weighed 205 pounds in high school, but football helped him keep his weight under control. That all changed when he enrolled at Liberty University, in Lynchburg, VA, and the hours on the gridiron were replaced with a steady job and a full load of college courses. His fitness plummeted
as his weight shot up.

Tired of the life he’d created, Killin moved to Boca Raton, FL, for a fresh start. Although he’d planned on going back to school, he ended up in a demanding job as a restaurant manager. Double shifts were common, and he sometimes wouldn’t get a full meal until two in the morning—and that was usually junk food.

“If it was bad for you, I loved it,” he recalls. “A meal at McDonald’s was two double cheeseburgers, two McChicken sandwiches, and an order of fries.” He’d wash that down with booze almost every night. The breaking point came when he began struggling to fi t into his already large clothes. “I woke up one morning and realized that being 23 and 262 pounds was simply not going to cut it,” he says. “I needed pants bigger than a size 44, and my shirts were formfitting at an XL. I decided that was it.”

WES’ ADVICE

Never Settle
“Don’t fall into the trap of ‘I’ve always been big, so I’m destined to be big.’ No one was designed to be 300 pounds.”

He took things slowly at fi rst, jumping on a stationary bike for 30 minutes every morning and kicking his fast-food habit entirely. The stricter diet and simple workouts helped him to drop 70 pounds—but he still didn’t have much muscle.

“I knew nothing about training. The idea of walking into the gym frightened me,” he says. After about a year in Florida, Killin ended up moving back to Lynchburg to re-enroll at Liberty. Once there, he struck gold with a gym rat roommate who “had the patience to teach me how to do everything,” he says.

While his workouts began with his trying to hit every muscle every day, without any rest, he gradually adopted a better strategy built around splits and simple push/pull exercises. “Reading and talking to people helped me learn to plan my workouts better,” he says.

That self-education worked. Today, Killin is in the best shape of his life. At 25, he’s 160 pounds and boasts a 240-pound bench press. He changes his workouts monthly to avoid plateaus and follows a diet of lean meats, eggs, fruits, and veggies. He’s even picked up a job at his local YMCA as a youth sports director, where his goal is to help children avoid the difficulties he endured while growing up.

“I have a passion to help people understand fitness now,” he says. “Choosing a healthy lifestyle is about more than just controlling your weight.”